Woman to have baby taken away at birth...

[SharpMolarBear]

because she is likely to suffer from Munschausen's syndrome by proxy

And the mis-use of paediatricians as 'experts' on adults (which they aren't) dates back to the very first case of alleged MSbP, where Roy Meadows alleged a woman would harm her children in future because she was physically ill with hard-to-diagnose condition. Which was eventually diagnosed, and ultimately put her in a wheelchair. Sadly after her children had been adopted.

Edam I am a great fan of Gok Wan and his philosophy that all women are beautiful and if I wasn' married to my lovely DH I definatly would want to have his babies

Fran my apologies on behalf of DH. I will ask him to change it if at all possible.

Hope the wording is fine for everyone and when it has been accepted I will repost the link.

I would adapt Fran's own words, tbh, they are so powerful and hard to write off as the claims of extremists (ie those in power might dismiss the current petition as backed by people with axes to grind).

So, introductory par along the lines you have and then:

"I We believe that the vast majority of social workers are genuinely caring and empathetic individuals who honestly seek to provide help and support to people who are really struggling at the margins of society. However I We also believe that too often they are abandoned in a poorly staffed, poorly resourced and poorly trained system which really can't cope with the demands being made of it. Decisions made in situations such as mine Fran Lyon's are so immense as to deny true comprehension. Surely it must be in everyone's interest that we ensure the professionals and the system responsible are as transparent, informed and rigorous as is possible? The system quite rightly and necessarily wields a vast amount of power - but for it to do so without due scrutiny and humility often ends up feeling, and being perceived as being, abusive in itself.

... might dismiss (unfairly)...

Do you know, I wonder whether SWs have any training at all in assessing evidence rationally? Because many of these cases seem to show a lack of all logic. If a doctor who has never met the person in question says "If [what SS tells them is true] then x, y, z...' that does not mean 'This person is a threat to their child'.

Brilliant Edam & Mr GW the two together should be great.

Let us know when we ned to start the sign-up campaign.The petition will be good if we can get lots of signatures & then get it picked up by the media.

I would also say though that the impact will be greater if individuals also contact their own MP's & raise a stink that way.
Often a petition is regarded as one "complaint/concern" in statistics regardless of the number of signatures.

If we all write to our MP's asking them to support John Hemming & his EDM in parliament it would have extra effect.

count me in.

Is someone going to do a draft letter for everyone to copy and send to their own mp? Obviously, people wouldn't have to use the draft one, they could do their own, but for those who want to write but don't know how to phrase it, it could be a good idea.....

Edam I wonder that too. There MUST be a certain criteria surely that have to be met before action is taken? I would have thought you have to have ceratin "tick-boxes" filled befoer you go steaming in. It all seems so subjective & inconsistant.

The draft letter sounds a good idea.

You can find and write to your MP through this site by just putting in your postcode. Although it does say not to copy/paste the letter so we would have to type it out.

Good idea Saggers & GP.

How about something like...

"I am writing to ask you to support the EDM by John Hemming (ref xyz-I'll check that later)regarding the continued secrecy of the family courts and the practice of gagging families who try to raise awareness of their situation. I would particularly like you to commment on the case of Fran Lyon who is pregnant & under threat of having her baby taken into care purely on the grounds of a previous mental illness as a teenager."

Keep it short & factual but express outrage/concern insert your choice of words to show your feelings but keep it calm.

EDM 1766 Family Courts-John Hemming

The more suggestions for letters we get from different people the better. We can all then write individual letters but with salient points/phrases that appeal to us rather than blanket reproduction of the same letter.

Please consider writing to your District Councillor as well, the more interest we raise in this issue as a whole (as well as Frans case in particular) the better.

when I wrote my letter, I went on about discredited paediatrician's advice on this syndrome, and previous miscarriages of justice (sure you can guess the details of that!) and how cases of children forcibly removed from their parents have come back to haunt us twenty, thirty years later, and I didn't want these current cases to go the same way.

It's not me being brilliant, it's Fran! Those are her words - and I think they are remarkable How someone in her position can manage to write so calmly, clearly, and without critcising social workers... I'm in awe.

Obv. the petition and letters need to state clearly what we want. I'd suggest

• A full, independent and open public inquiry into the workings of the family courts and child protection, incorporating anonymity for children (we can do it for rape victims and children in the criminal courts, it's clearly workable). If they won't fund a public inquiry, then we could suggest a parliamentary select committee. To include statistics on the number of children of what ages involved in forced adoption before the new targets were introduced and after.

In the meantime and in order for that inquiry to work:

• To lift the gagging orders - it's an appalling abuse of democracy to prevent people from going to their own MPs, let alone journalists (whatever you think of the trade, there is a long history of exposing miscarriages of justice).

And...

• A proper review of care proceedings that involved disputed medical evidence. The 'review' ordered by Margaret Hodge after the Sally Clark case asked SS to investigate themselves - strangely they decided there weren't many cases. And one MNer whose case was one of the first to involve Meadows was told flatly by the SS dept concerned that hers wasn't included. double

Hello,

Thank you all so much. I'm really touched.

Could I ask that something be added to edam's list?

The system at the moment is supposed to do everything it possibly can to support families in staying together wherever this is safe for the child. Where it's not possible to keep families together then contact is supposed to be as frequent and as substantial as is safe. Tragically it is too often the case that poor resources mean these things don't happen. People can't get into Mother and Baby units because there aren't the beds, or there aren't enough staff for 24 hour supervision. Families don't get Christmas, or Birthdays or Weekends together because there is no-one available to supervise the contact.

"In the best interests of the child" should mean just that. It shouldn't mean "In the best interests of the child - subject to resources".

I would like to see the system as a whole fully commit to keeping families together where at all possible and so plough its considerable force and might into securing the resources that would make this possible.

Thanks again,

Fran

I'd suggest three things we need to request -

1. No more secret proceedings in the family courts for care orders or adoptions

1. The disallowal of MSBP/FII as a diagnosis. Instead evidence must be required to prove that child abuse has taken place.

1. Ending targets for adoption for social workers which create external pressure on professionals in an area where there should be no pressure

DH has already wtitten to our MP. I will send him all the ideas everyone has had and get him to concoct a letter for everyone's perusal sometime tonight. He is a writer and is quite good at this sort of thing. Then if you all like it you can send it to your MP. If you don't it can be tweaked or ignored.

Good ideas from all.

Thank you,I, for one would be grateful of extra points to put in I just see red & go off on a rant!!

I think Harriet Harman is the minister we also need to get in touch with as she is in charge of the family courts at the Department of Justice. I guess any changes in the law would come from her area. So perhaps everybody could copy their letter to their MPs to her:

The Rt Hon Harriet Harman QC MP
Minister of State
Department for Constitutional Affairs
Selborne House
54 Victoria Street
London
SW1E 6QW

The secrecy is the big issue, because once these proceedings are out in the open (as happened in the criminal cases with Roy Meadow and David Southall) it will be much harder for these kind of things to reoccur. Once the light of publicity had been shone on those two for long enough, they were discredited and are no longer used as expert witnesses. The same thing needs to happen to all the other paediatricians and expert witnesses who have jumped on the MSBP bandwagon.

As a side note, one of the findings of the Victoria Climbie investigation was that the social workers who should have been looking out for her were spending too much time on MSBP cases.

Hello,

I think it's now Bridget Prentice (after the Brown reshuffle and change from Dept. of Constitutional Affairs to Ministry of Justice). Bridget Prentice can be contacted at:

Constituency Office at 13 Leegate,Eltham Rd,SE12 8SS

The telephone number is: 020 8852 3995

Fax: 020 8297 5760

Email: [email protected]

Thank you,

Fran

Oops, sorry for the misinformation. The government need to update their websites. Harriet Harman is still being advertised as in charge of the family courts on one of them.

They have left some sites up (like the department for constitutional affairs) as a kind of archive I think. It is a bit confusing though because you can still get linked through into the body of the site and so miss the warning on the home page which tells you it's no longer "live".

Every Queen's Speech all the EDM's (Early Day Motions) fall. They have to be retabled, but the numbers then change.

Please don't do anything about chasing MPs to sign EDMs until they are retabled.

Those people who get the JFF campaign newsletter will have the new numbers (when appropriate).

thanks, john, good point!

Is there any reason for that John, or is it just one of those things?

Fran

(my slightly geek-like obsession for understanding process rears it's head...)

Isn't it just one of those gormenghastly parliamentary things?